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Viewpoints matter. In
Giselle Potter’s Tell Me What to Dream
About, a little girl asks her big sister to help her come up with dreams so
she can fall asleep. And big sister obliges, suggesting a dream about a
breakfast of teeny-tiny waffles shared with teeny-tiny animals. But from little
sister’s point of view, the little animals would be crawling all over the
waffles – what kind of relaxing dream is that? So big sister suggests a dream
about regular-size animals, but with little sister herself being a giant,
keeping the animals as pets and listening to their “funny squeaky voices.” This
does not work from little sister’s viewpoint, though: she doesn’t like the idea
of “squeaky pets.” Again and again, big sister tries to come up with pleasant,
enjoyable dream scenes, but again and again, the girls’ points of view
conflict. A furry world? But furry friends might be scary! Living in the fluffy
clouds and riding them around? “The big sister liked her own idea a lot,” but
little sister thinks it would be scary living so high up. Nothing works, and
eventually big sister gets too tired to think of anything further – at which
point she comes up with a simple, homespun idea that both sisters like so much
that they both fall asleep immediately. The underlying notion here is an old
one, along the lines of “be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,”
even in dreams. Parents may find that worth thinking about when kids ask for
help going to sleep: flights of fancy may appeal to adult and older-child
minds, but sometimes it is the down-to-earth, straightforward ideas that
littler children find most comforting.

Speaking of humble homes,
one of them is where 10 cave swallows live in Courtney Dicmas’ Home Tweet Home. The two biggest of the
distinctive and distinctly odd-looking birds (Dicmas’ illustrations are
simultaneously simple and elaborate – and very amusing) are Burt and Pippi,
both of whom have had enough of sharing a small nest with eight littler
siblings. After all, one of the small birds, Rupert, has stinky feet, and
another, Maude, practices judo, and a third, Cecil, engages in band practice
that involves both cymbals and bagpipes. It is all just too much for any small
nest to contain! So one night, Burt and Pippi set off in search of a better,
more-spacious place for the family to live. And sure enough, they find one – or
think they do. It is indeed big and sturdy, but, uh-oh, it turns out to be the
shell of a large tortoise. And while the tortoise is friendly and invites the
birds to live with him, Burt and Pippi realize this is not quite what they had
in mind, so their quest must continue. And continue it does, with a series of
equally unsatisfactory results. From being “almost lunch” when encountering one
animal to being highly surprised when an apparent island turns out to be part
of an octopus, Burt and Pippi find, again and again, that there just isn’t
anyplace better than the nest where they already live. Even a kangaroo’s pouch
“isn’t what I thought it would be,” Burt laments, while a snake’s coils are
“squishy” and a fox has a soft and lovely tail but looks at the birds
distinctly hungrily. So eventually the two explorers have no choice but to
return home – but instead of being dejected, they are happy, having learned
that the fact that the world is so big “makes coming home so much better,” even
to a place with stinky feet, martial arts, bagpipes and eight littler siblings.
Lesson learned.

The lesson of LeUyen Pham’s There’s No Such Thing as Little is
encapsulated in the book’s title: what one person sees as “little,” another can
see as something else entirely. Through a series of sweetly sentimental
sentences and illustrations, Pham provides a sense of perspective that is
different from, but related to, the one of Home
Tweet Home. Cutouts in the pages of Pham’s book show how something can look
little on one page and not little at all on the next. A little light on one
page – which shows two children gazing at a candle – becomes, overleaf, the
light glowing inside a lighthouse, with the two children sailing toward it on a
boat and the text describing it as “a welcoming light.” A little snowflake,
which the boy and girl see through a window from inside a house, becomes, on
the next page, “a unique snowflake,” one of many in which the two children can
play. A little fish in a bowl becomes “a brave fish” swimming in the opposite
direction of a whole school of larger fish. In the book’s most amusing idea and
illustration, a little idea (shown as the proverbial lightbulb within a thought
balloon) becomes “a fantastic idea” – specifically, the “world’s greatest ice
cream machine,” complete with “moo motor” (a rather bemused-looking cow), a
series of dials and levers, a flavor list, and a robotic dispenser of very
generously sized ice-cream cones. The transformation of “little” things is
particularly attractive here because those things do not formulaically become
big ones – instead, they become different
ones, not so much large as seen in a larger context. As a result, There’s No Such Thing as Little shows
kids ways in which they can think about the everyday items around them
differently and discover new aspects of them – “thinking outside the box,” as
the business cliché puts it. But there is nothing clichéd about the way Pham dramatizes
the value of non-straight-line thinking: her approach shows many charming ways
in which something that is apparently small can become very big indeed, if kids
only think about it that way.

Hell from the Heavens: The Epic
Story of the USS Laffey and World War
II’s Greatest Kamikaze Attack. By John Wukovits. Da Capo. $25.99.

It is hard to imagine a much
greater contrast in nonfiction books than the disparity between these two. Jon
Macks’ is simply a sort-of-behind-the-scenes, sort-of-humorous story based on
his 22 years of writing for The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno. That means the book is strictly for fans of that show,
and even more strictly for people interested in (and familiar with) all sorts
of celebrity gossip and other utter trivia that somehow make viewers’ lives
seem better, or at least less bad. “The types of people and entities in the
news who make the monologue have remained the same” decade after decade,
explains Macks. “There’s always been the female celebrity who’s a mess, the
bad-boy athlete, the bad actor, the moron in the news, the befuddled Royal
Family member, the incompetent business executive, the tin-pot dictator, the
clueless southerner, and the cheating male politician.” But, Macks hastens to
tell us, his monologues for his on-air personality were not as nasty
as others: “Jay liked to break balls, but only with those who could take it.
There’s no mean streak in him that you sometimes would see emerge in other
hosts.” Added to this particular bit of hagiography (there are others) are matters
such as a listing of the number of Leno jokes about specific politicians during
22 years, as compiled by the Center for Media and Public Affairs – and you get
some passing humor along the way, provided you are sufficiently in tune with
pop and political culture to understand it: “It’s a little bit odd that [Osama]
bin Laden made this list [of politicians], as he wasn’t elected. And if he was
elected, I’m guessing women didn’t vote. Also I’m also [sic] guessing he did
really badly with the Jewish vote. So I’d replace him with Herman Cain, because
there is nothing odder than a pizza shop owner who runs for president so he can
harass women.” The humor throughout Monologue
is of the smirking type, clearly designed for people already quite familiar
with and enamored of what late-night TV is all about. For example, when
discussing jokes he did not write but wishes he had, Macks introduces the
section this way: “It’s not the women I’ve had sex with that I think about,
it’s the ones I haven’t. I can’t remember a lot of my jokes, but I sure remember
those of others I wish I had written.” There is a bit of information offered
here, pretty much in passing, about the realities of being a late-night-TV
comedy writer: “As a general rule I didn’t write for the guests on the show.
They had their own material, or stories that they had reviewed with the
producers. But sometimes the producers would ask the writers to help out the
talent with a bit they wanted to do on the show and the writers would help; or
there would be times when a friend of mine was coming on the show and if he or
she called needing a few lines, I’d break out the laptop.” But by and large, Monologue is an excuse for Macks to
showcase his comedy abilities and give readers who liked his material on The Tonight Show (whether or not they
knew it was his) some more of the same. Thus, “for some reason Republicans are
much better at self-deprecation. Maybe because they believe they have God on
their side. Which is the same thing ISIS says.” If you enjoy this sort of
thing, there is plenty of it here.

What made the world, or at
least vapid American television, safe for people like Macks to build a career
in is an entirely different sort of story, one that is as intense and
frightening as Mack’s is frothy and frivolous. The story of the USS Laffey is just a small part of that
story, but it is one told in exhaustive detail by military historian John
Wukovits in Hell from the Heavens. The
readership of this book will be strictly limited to people fascinated by the
minutiae of World War II and the often-forgotten, always-intense battles that
brought it to an end. The particular story of USS Laffey is one from very late in the war, dating to April 16, 1945.
After a variety of major battlefield defeats and vast economic destruction, the
Japanese had launched kamikaze
attacks in October 1944. They were highly dramatic but not very effective –
only about one-fifth of kamikaze
pilots managed to hit their targets. The largest single-ship kamikaze attack of all was the one on the
destroyer named USS Laffey, but the
ship was not sunk: 32 sailors died and more than 70 were wounded, but the ship
remained afloat and managed to get home from Okinawa, where the attack
occurred. Wukovits’ book about the battle follows a tried-and-true formula for
modern war reporting, combining considerable research with contemporaneous
correspondence from crew members and numerous personal reminiscences of
survivors. Books like this need heroes, and of course the entire crew of USS Laffey is described as heroic, but one
man in particular is the focus of the book and the heroism: the ship’s
commander, F. Julian Becton, who took a crew whose members were inexperienced
and largely untaught and molded it into a strong, adept fighting force that
actually managed to shoot down nine of the 22 kamikaze attackers. Becton died in 1995 at age 87, having retired
from the Navy in 1966 as a rear admiral, but it sounds from Wukovits’ book as
if his men, scattered after the war as so many were, retained a special place
in their hearts and memories for him. Indeed, his eulogy was given by one of
the men he commanded aboard the USS Laffey.
The story of this ship and its battle with the kamikaze attackers is not well known today, but it has garnered
periodic attention in many places: True
Comics featured the story of the attack on the destroyer in its Winter 1945
issue, for example, and the ship and its surviving crew members appeared on the
NBC show Real People in 1982. The USS
Laffey was permanently decommissioned
in 1975, and it is now one of three ships berthed at the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. The detailed reporting of the kamikaze battle may make Hell from the Heavens a difficult book
to read for those not already entrenched in their interest in the specifics of
World War II fighting, but the overarching story of men battling long odds,
fighting opponents who were not only ready but also determined to die rather than surrender, is one that continues to
resonate today – making this book’s story the other side of flippant
late-night-TV jokes about terrorist murderers such as the Islamic fanatics of
ISIS.

The same, only more so. That
is a fair description of second books, whether they are sequels, the middle
books of trilogies, or part of an ongoing series that will last
who-knows-how-long. The last of these categorizations fits the second volume of
Eddie Red, Undercover, whose first
entry was Mystery on Museum Mile.
That first book introduced Eddie and his best friend, Jonah, in a mystery
filled with twists and turns that contained some (mostly mild) real danger and
needed to be solved with brain power rather than violence. Now comes Mystery in Mayan Mexico, which –
surprise – includes Eddie and Jonah in another twists-and-turns-filled story
requiring brains rather than brawn to solve a mystery. Like the earlier book,
this one benefits from the detailed pencil portraits of Marcos Calo, which make
the characters come alive to a greater extent than Marcia Wells’ prose
generally does on its own. Unlike the earlier novel, this one includes a third
amateur sleuth in the person of a girl named Julia, who becomes a
sort-of-girlfriend for Jonah – to just about the right extent for a book aimed
at and featuring sixth-graders. Mystery
of Mayan Mexico starts with Eddie, Jonah and Eddie’s parents on a two-week
Mexican vacation, where Eddie hopes to forget all about the art-heist caper
that occurred in the first book and led to his being grounded (it helps to have
read that book to enjoy this one, although it is not absolutely necessary).
Eddie’s photographic memory is introduced quickly, so new readers will
understand its importance and old ones will be reminded of it. Indeed, as Eddie
explains, “Last winter, the NYPD secretly hired me because of my photographic
memory and my ability to draw near-perfect pictures.” Jonah hopes to have a
better adventure this time than last, when “all I got was a stupid sinus
infection,” but as the book develops – of course it is not a vacation story but
another mystery – Jonah’s role is, again, to get sick and stay that way (not a
very flattering use of a sidekick, but Wells seems to think it is offbeat
enough to be interesting to young readers). What happens here is that Eddie’s
father’s fingerprints are found inside a glass case from which a valuable artifact
has been stolen, so of course he is accused of the crime, and of course Eddie
and Jonah work with the police (as happened before) and then realize they have
to solve the case on their own (as also happened before). Eventually, thanks to
a combination of unlikely events involving a real threat, real danger, a broken
bone and some projectile vomiting, the case is indeed solved, Eddie’s father is
exonerated, and the trip back to New York City is uneventful until – at the
very end of the book – the art thief from the previous book reappears, setting
the stage for the next entry in this series, to be called Doom at Grant’s Tomb.

The Maeve’ra Trilogy is intended for teenagers rather than
preteens, and for that reason introduces more-adult themes than are to be found
in the Eddie Red stories. Bloodkin,
however, is even more of a continuation of the events of its predecessor, Bloodwitch, than the second Eddie Red
book is of the events in the first. For her series, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has
created a world called Midnight in which vampires and shapeshifters have the
power and the 16-year-old protagonist, Kadee, finds herself caught between them
and within their machinations. Unlike the second Eddie Red book, this second
one about Kadee really does require familiarity with the first novel in its
series: much of what Kadee goes through and worries about in Bloodkin traces directly back to events
and decisions she made in Bloodwitch.
Readers need to be thoroughly familiar with the various types of beings in
Midnight in order to accept and easily follow Kadee’s narration: “Though I knew
all three Shantel royals, I had never met the sakkri, with her gift of
prophecy. The Shantel’s most sacred witch was chosen by the land itself, and
recognized at birth by the ‘white curse,’ a mark visible on both her human and
animal forms. …A sakkri had no parents, no lovers, no friends.” Here as in so
many other stories, prophecies are, of course, ambiguous: “That was prophecy;
it was abstract and far away, talk of ‘someday’ and ‘imagine when.’” So it is
no surprise that what Kadee learns (from multiple sources) becomes clear only
as the book moves toward its climax. The result is lines such as, “I was
reminded of what the deathwitch had said: he
is broken, and does not know how to love something and let it be free.” Much
of Bloodkin rehashes events of the
previous novel and has Kadee trying to come to terms with what she has done as
well as who she is (which was the focus of the first book). This second book
deepens the story being told in the trilogy without really advancing it very
much. It does end with a line common, in virtually identical words, to many
other second books of trilogies: “It was time to make a stand.” So there is no
question that Atwater-Rhodes has more action, and perhaps less back-and-forth
talkiness, in store for the upcoming conclusion of The Maeve’ra Trilogy.

There is a Maeve in Deception’s Pawn, too: she is the
princess who is the protagonist of this follow-up to Deception’s Princess. A two-book series rather than a longer
sequence, Esther Friesner’s fantasy adventure is, like The Maeve’ra Trilogy, aimed at teenage readers – primarily if not
exclusively girls, since Maeve of Connacht is clearly intended as a role model
of a strong-willed, self-reliant would-be ruler. This pair of books takes place
in a fictionalized Celtic world, which means Deception’s Pawn, like its predecessor, is filled with names such
as Clothru (pronounced KLAW-rah), Eithne (EN-ah), Cineád (kee-NOD), Conchobar (koh-NA-ber), and Caer Ibormeith (KER
eh-BROOM-mah). The pronunciation guide at the book’s end is worth studying
before entering or re-entering Friesner’s setting, which otherwise seems
unnecessarily opaque. The story itself, though, is straightforward enough, as
Maeve continues asserting herself, finding out who she is and what her limits
are, and discovering which relatives and other characters are really important
to her now and in the future: “I was not running away, but flying to my heart’s
home, to the one who had always been my shelter without ever being my prison.” Maeve
eventually comes into her own through cleverness and subtle reasoning, through
the realization that “people see what they expect to see, and they tell themselves
the stories they want to hear.” So she spins a tale of having been abducted by
the Fair Folk, and having escaped by winning a wager – a story people are so
willing to believe that “the story of my abduction to the Otherworld was like a
tree that grew more robust with every fact-bearing limb that was lopped off.” So
Maeve learns a great deal about controlling people, and about using that
ability to rule her subjects wisely, and learns as well to “wave away details
when it suited [her], or when it was a necessary kindness.” She truly does come
into her own by the end of Deception’s
Pawn, and if her strength and steadfastness are considerably more modern
than in tune with the sort-of-medieval time in which her story is set, what of
it? Both the first book about Maeve and the second are designed for 21st-century
readers who wish to visit an alternative version of the past only briefly, and
only in the company of an author who can make sure everything turns out just as
they wish it would.

There have been many
discussions in recent years about the tendency toward a kind of homogenizing of
orchestral sound, so that one orchestra’s performances sound every much like those
of another ensemble. This is by and large true: the circumstance is abetted by
the fact that so many conductors now lead multiple orchestras, and so few stay
around any single orchestra long enough to help an ensemble develop a unique
sound and style (as, for example, George Szell did with the Cleveland Orchestra
in his day and Herbert von Karajan did with the Berlin Philharmonic in his). A
positive side-effect of this homogenization is less often remarked: it means
that conductors can count on very high-quality performances from far more
orchestras than in the past, thus having a better chance of communicating their
own visions of the music being performed. The London Philharmonic Orchestra,
for example, might not be thought of as a particularly “Brucknerian” ensemble,
but its new LPO recording of Bruckner’s Third Symphony – in a live performance
from March 2014 – shows that it can handle this composer’s music with all the
fullness, richness and sense of scale that conductor Stanislaw Skrowaczewski
wants it to have. Skrowaczewski was 90½ years old when he led this performance,
and his health – including his hearing – has not been good in recent years. But
he is a strongly committed Brucknerian with a clear personal view of the
symphonies, to such an extent that this performance uses his own edition of the
Third – a work whose existence in multiple, very different versions has long
produced headaches for conductors concerned about which Bruckner Third to
present. Skrowaczewski’s solution, the creation of his own performing version,
neatly evades questions of authenticity and allows him to pick and choose the
elements that he believes make the symphony most effective and most
communicative. Many listeners will not notice any significant differences
between this version and others; indeed, most of what Skrowaczewski has done
involves matters of emphasis and detail. As a conductor, Skrowaczewski lets the
music grow and breathe expansively, especially in the first movement, and makes
the Adagio second movement an
emotionally involving experience. The third and fourth movements are not at
quite as high a level, but both are well-paced and structurally sensitive –
indeed, where Skrowaczewski excels is in finding unity within a symphony that
can all too easily sprawl (especially in its first, 1873 version, which may be
why Skrowaczewski’s unpublished edition draws mainly on the later, shorter
forms of the work). The orchestra plays very well indeed for a conductor long
known for his Bruckner affinity and now approaching the point at which any
performance he gives becomes part of his distinguished legacy.

Australian conductor Simone
Young is far from the “legacy” stage – she is just 54 – but is certainly
establishing herself as a Bruckner conductor of note. Better known for her
Wagner conducting and her handling of opera (including Wagner’s), Young is now
in the midst of a Bruckner cycle for Oehms that shows her in full command of
the Bruckner sound and Bruckner symphonic structure. Her reading of the
Seventh, a live recording in very fine SACD sound, means only Nos. 5 and 9 have
yet to be released. This Seventh relies heavily on the excellent playing of
Philharmoniker Hamburg, an ensemble that has retained something of its own
unique orchestral sound. There is warmth and fine ensemble work throughout the
symphony, along with a strong sense of rhythm: Bruckner’s typical
three-against-two passages come through clearly, and the Scherzo is strong and
does not lumber. The pacing is middle-of-the-road, somewhat on the slow side
from time to time, but always convincingly so. There are no particular
revelations here: Young offers a very well-played version of the symphony that
is thoroughly satisfactory and convincing, although it breaks no new
interpretative ground. The word that comes to mind for this and her other Bruckner
recordings is “solid.” She clearly understands this music and knows how to get
the orchestra to handle Bruckner’s rhythmic and emotional complexities very
well – the orchestra’s own skill in this repertoire and the evenness of its sectional
balance being big pluses as well. The releases in this series have emerged in
no particularly logical order; it will be interesting to see, when the cycle
(which even includes No. 00) is complete, whether Young evinces a strong sense
of the composer’s structural, harmonic, rhythmic and emotive development from
the early symphonies to the late ones. On its own, this is a fine Seventh that
lacks any strong personal conductorial vision but is effective in pacing,
balance and the overall impression made by the music.

Yet another live recording,
Gerard Schwarz’s Mahler Second with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, is less
convincing. Schwarz is not an especially strong Mahler interpreter: the cycle
of which this two-CD Artek set is a part has a number of high points but is, on
the whole, a mixed bag. That description definitely applies to this
“Resurrection” performance. The first two movements are simply drab, and the
first is disconnected and episodic – there is no sense of building to the
movement’s climactic conclusion, and even the orchestra plays below its
capabilities here. In the third movement, though, Schwarz and the ensemble find
themselves: this movement really flows, the music’s elegantly sinuous strains
making up for much of the vapidity that has come before. The fourth movement is
excellent, thanks to the very rich, deep mezzo-soprano (almost contralto) voice
of Catherine Wyn-Rogers, whose expressiveness is of a very high order. And the
finale opens with all the drama and intensity that the first movement lacks, then
proceeds inexorably through its lengthy instrumental portion until the chorus
eventually enters very quietly, with
such a hush that it almost seems for a moment as if the singing is
otherworldly. This is highly effective, and the concluding choral section
(including the solo contribution of Ailish Tynan) is a worthy capstone to the
symphony. This is a (+++) performance that would certainly have rated higher if
the first two movements had been at the level of the third through fifth. There
is also a serious production error in the packaging that could easily have been
avoided. The correct place to split this symphony onto two CDs is after the
first movement: Mahler even said that the orchestra and conductor should take a
five-minute pause at that point (which is never observed but would be a good
idea, because the ending of the opening movement is so different from the start
of the second). It can even be argued that the symphony should be split after
the third movement, with the two containing vocals on the second disc. The one
place it should never be split is
after the fourth movement: Mahler directly and clearly said that the fifth
movement was to come attacca after
the fourth. But that incorrect place is exactly where Artek splits the
recording – a serious miscalculation.

There are no such missteps
in the (++++) Chandos recording of Walton’s Symphony No. 2 with the BBC
Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner. This is a fine followup to Gardner’s
reading of Walton’s First, showing once again that he is a conductor of
sensitivity and fluency in this composer’s style. The performance here is
probing, idiomatic and well-paced, with special attention given to the lovely
central Lento assai, which here
emerges as the heart and soul of the symphony. The symphony is paired with a
very fine version of the Cello Concerto, where the orchestral support is
especially notable: this is another case in which fine orchestral sound simply
seems expected from any high-class ensemble, but there is nevertheless
something special in the way in which the BBC Symphony interacts with cellist
Paul Watkins. The soloist himself is very well attuned to Walton’s moods: the
rhapsodic warmth of the outer movements contrasts beautifully with the
brilliant and intense central scherzo in a performance that is carefully
considered, thoughtful and emotionally involving. Also here is a curiosity: Improvisations on an Impromptu of Benjamin
Britten, in which Walton subjects a nine-bar theme from Britten’s Piano
Concerto to contrasting variations and transformations that range from the
lyrical to the aggressive. The first-rate SACD sound serves this work
particularly well, and Gardner’s knowing conducting constitutes an argument in
favor of hearing this infrequently performed work more often.

Bizet’s second symphony,
known as Roma, is also heard on only
rare occasions, and unfortunately, the fine performance by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under
Jean-Luc Tingaud shows why. Bizet was often a superb melodist, but not here:
the work is awkward and seems to struggle throughout its four movements to find
a center of some sort. Begun as early as 1860 and not completed until 1871, Roma was originally a kind of tone poem
(along the lines of Respighi’s much later Roman
Trilogy), but evolved into a traditional four-movement symphony that
unfortunately lacks the grace and flow of Bizet’s earlier Symphony in C. Indeed,
all the works on this new Naxos CD show that fine playing and a sensitive
interpretation cannot rescue music that is nowhere near a composer’s best.
There is little of the drama, melodic flow and sensitivity of Les pêcheurs de perles or Carmen in the grandiose Marche funèbre, the early Overture in A, or the intermittently
effective but overblown Patrie—Overture,
although the orchestra plays all the pieces well and smoothly and the
conducting is sure-handed and idiomatic. The best things here are the
miniatures: Esquisse: Les quatre coins
and Petite suite, the latter in
particular having Mendelssohnian fleetness and a wonderfully light touch. For
listeners interested in some less-known Bizet, this will be a (++++) disc, and
certainly the performances put it at that level; but for audiences in general,
the quality of most of the music makes it a (+++) offering despite the
undoubted skill with which these lesser works are shaped and presented.

Franz Joseph Haydn wrote in
just about every musical form in existence in his time, but not that of the
string quintet – he said no one ever asked him to. However, his younger
brother, Michael (1737-1806), delved into this particular form five times, and
although his quintets are so rarely performed as to be genuine oddities, a new
CPO recording shows them to be highly worthy works deserving of much greater
familiarity. Michael Haydn is perhaps best known nowadays for writing
“Mozart’s” Symphony No. 37 – Mozart wrote only the introduction to the first
movement. But he was a more-significant musical force in his own time, although
never at his brother’s level. That contemporary judgment is reinforced by the
performances by the very fine Salzburger Haydn-Quintett: this is music that
breaks no significant new ground for its time, but is poised, elegant,
well-balanced and thoroughly well-made. The composer actually designated only
one of these works (in F, Perger 110, MH 367) as a straightforward “quintetto.”
He called another (in C, Perger 108, MH 187) a “notturno/quintetto” and a third
(in G, Perger 109, MH 189) simply a “notturno.” These designations show how
Michael Haydn used the second viola to darken the overall tone of this music
and give it a more “nocturnal” feeling. He also had movements dip frequently into
minor-key episodes despite these works’ home major keys – an effective device
managed skillfully. Each of the remaining two quintets (in B-flat, Perger 105,
MH 412, and in F, Perger 112, MH 411) is labeled “divertimento.” Each of them
has more than the four movements of the other quintets: each contains a second
minuet and a stately, well-formed set of variations. They are not, however,
appreciably lighter in structure or tone than the “notturno” and “quintetto”
works. Indeed, there is little overall variation evident in the composer’s
approach to this instrumental form: the pieces date to as early as 1773 and as
late as 1786, but unlike his older brother, Michael Haydn tended to evolve
formally to a certain point and then, having found a sort of musical comfort
zone, to remain within it. Indeed, “comfortable” is the overall feeling
generated by his quintets: this is music reflecting the best mid-to-late-18th-century
techniques and sensibilities without pushing beyond them, reminding modern
listeners of a vanished world of elegance and style, and of emotions portrayed
musically only so deeply and no further.

On the face of it, there is
nothing especially unusual about yet another recording of Bach’s organ music,
not even one ambitiously designated the first volume of The Bach Project. Most of the works performed by Todd Fickley on a
new MSR Classics release are ones with which listeners will be familiar: Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C, BWV 564;
An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653; Trio Sonata No. 1, BWV 525; Prelude and
Fugue in A minor, BWV 543; Partite Diverse Sopra il Corale “Sei Gegrüsset,
Jesu, Gütig,” BWV 768; and Passacaglia
in C minor, BWV 582. Also on the face of it, Fickley’s choice of an organ
on which to perform is unexceptionable and intelligent. But the superficial
“just another fine recording of Bach’s organ music” response to this release is
misplaced, because in fact the CD is a showcase for “virtual pipe organ”
software called Hauptwerk. A visit to
www.hauptwerk.com is worthwhile for
anyone considering purchase of this disc, because the software itself is
fascinating and its concept unusual enough to merit some serious thought about
the differences between real pipe organs and digital keyboards that reproduce
organ sounds. That reproduction is frequently, to put it bluntly, awful. The
ease of use of a readily portable digital keyboard is inarguable, and for many
people, the difference in sound between what such a keyboard generates and what
pipe organs produce is meaningless when it comes to typical hymns and other
church music – the main pieces with which many people associate organs and the
primary ones for which organs are nowadays used. Great organ music, however –
whether by Bach or such other towering figures as Widor and Vierne – always
sounds constricted and compromised when performed on a typical digital organ. Hauptwerk intends to change that by a
complex and well-thought-out sampling technique designed to mimic, in great
detail, the exact sound of specific great organs of the world. So what Fickley
plays on here is not actually the 1721 Dutch organ located in St. Michaëlskerk, Zwolle – it is the Hauptwerk version of that organ, created
digitally and reproduced through a modern electronic instrument. On a strictly
musical basis, Fickley’s performances are fine, historically aware although not
imbued with all elements of historic performance practices. The actual sound of
the music is fine as well, and largely indistinguishable from the sound of a
pipe organ (only listeners who really know the specific one sampled here by Hauptwerk will be able to judge how well
its sound is reproduced). The whole project raises some intriguing questions,
though. Old organs, no matter how often updated and how well maintained, have
inevitable quirks, reflected in clicks, balky responses, extraneous noises, and
other odd little operating sounds. Hauptwerk
eliminate all of these: it samples, very accurately, the exact sound made by an
organ’s pipes, but not the organist’s technique in eliciting those sounds. Indeed, the whole notion is to let modern
organists, wherever located, employ their technique on virtual copies of great
organs located somewhere else. But is the absence of old instruments’
age-related elements a good thing? Do the difficulties of playing the old pipe
organs make them sound better or worse? Do those difficulties produce a
more-authentic listening experience, or one with which extraneous elements
constantly interfere? A listener’s response to these philosophical questions
will have a great deal to do with his or her enjoyment of, or disappointment
in, Fickley’s Hauptwerk recording.

There are no electronic instrumental
elements involved in another MSR Classics release, this one featuring Ensemble
Schumann – but there are other unusual things about it, including the
repertoire and some instrumental choices. The latter are germane to the
ensemble’s recording of Schumann’s late (1853) Märchenerzählungen, a four-movement work
for clarinet or violin, viola and piano. The choice of an oboe rather than
Schumann’s designated instruments significantly changes the character of some
aspects of this music. The oboe is less suited than the clarinet to the
ominous, dark opening and other elements of the second movement, and the viola-oboe
duet of the third movement is less effective than one involving viola and clarinet.
To be sure, it could be argued that choosing Schumann’s option of a violin also
alters the character of these sections, but Schumann was aware of the
differences that would result and clearly approved them. Using an oboe, even
when it is played as well as it is here by Thomas Gallant, results in tonal
colors than the composer did not anticipate but could surely have called for
had he wanted them. Gallant, Steve Larson and Sally Pinkas do perform very well
together, and the lyricism, grace and rhythmic drive of Märchenerzählungen come through well, even
if the overall sound of the piece is somewhat strange. The other works on this
CD are far less frequently heard, and some listeners will not know their
composers at all. Deux Rhapsodies by
violinist-composer Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) dates to 1901 and bears
the intriguing titles L’Étang
(“The Pond”) and La Cornemuse
(“Bagpipes”), and Loeffler – a careful and methodical composer, if not an
especially inspired one – presents some effective tone painting in both. Schilflieder (“Reed Songs”) by August
Klughardt (1847-1902) is an earlier work, written in 1872, with more of
Romanticism and less of Impressionism about it. Klughardt called the five
movements Phantasiestüke
(“Imaginative Pieces”) and wrote them for piano, oboe or violin, and viola.
They are based on poems by Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850) and are suitably reflective
of multiple moods: the atmosphere of Lenau’s poems comes through clearly even
without a listener knowing their specifics. The final work on this disc is the Serenade in F minor by Robert Kahn
(1865-1951), and it is perhaps the most historically fascinating piece here,
for all that it is the shortest and is very little known. Although it dates to
1922, it is written in an essentially Brahmsian style (Kahn knew Brahms, who
was so impressed with the younger composer that he offered to tutor him and did
help him informally). Kahn’s is a well-crafted work, not terribly deep but
elegant and genial. It is in a single continuous movement that breaks down into
a relaxed first part and a moderately fast second one, each with its own
contrasting middle section. What is fascinating is that when Kahn brought the
work to his publisher, it was as a trio for oboe, horn and piano – and the
publisher, Simrock, said it would barely sell in that form and needed to be
rewritten for a standard piano trio (with violin and cello). That would have created
two versions – but Kahn went overboard and ended up arranging the work for nine performance combinations: piano
with oboe, violin, clarinet or viola; plus horn, viola or cello. The
oboe/viola/piano version heard here serves the music well, bringing forth the
contrasts within the parts (especially the Vivace
section in the first part) and perhaps making listeners wonder if anyone would
care to release a CD containing all
the versions of this work. But Simrock would no doubt observe that it would probably
barely sell.

The instrumental
combinations are of a strictly Baroque cast in the very impressive Juilliard
Baroque performance of François
Couperin’s Les Nations, a set of four
extended and elaborate works devoted to the major Catholic powers of Europe in
Couperin’s time (1668-1733). The four are intended to represent France, Spain,
the Holy Roman Empire and the Savoy dynasty of Piedmont, but in fact their
elements are solely French and Italian (in the dance movements, more the former
than the latter) and, not surprisingly, often sound Corellian: Couperin
acknowledged his debt to Corelli and in fact introduced Corelli’s Trio Sonata
form to France. Each part of Les Nations
includes one of those trio sonatas, followed by a dance suite, and each part is
scored simply for two violins and continuo. But Les Nations is rarely performed that way: Couperin is known to have
had access to a variety of chamber musicians at the court of Louis XIV, so
modern performances – including this one – frequently fill out the bare bones
of Les Nations with instruments such
as those heard here. The result is a more-colorful performance that is arguably
just as authentic as one simply using violins and continuo. Certainly the Juilliard
Baroque musicians sound excellent on this Naxos release, playing individual
movements with style and finesse and providing fullness that is actually lush
when appropriate, as for instance in the chaconne of L’Impériale. Many movements are short, and at times the quick
transitions from instrument to instrument can prevent the creation of a unified
mood. Taken as a whole, though, this recording of Les Nations uses its instrumental mixture very well, producing a
performance that is historically informed, nicely paced, very well played, and
quite interesting to hear even some 300 years after Couperin’s original was
published in 1726.

Whoever came up with the
idea that comics are for kids never encountered strips such as Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis’
compilation of death, misery, beer, innuendo, bad puns and surrealism (the fact
that Pastis was trained as a lawyer probably contributes to that mixture). Pearls Before Swine is distinctly not for children, and in fact, when
Andrews McMeel put together some of Pastis’ strips for its kid-focused AMP!
Series, it was hard to believe that the editors could find enough
young-person-oriented material to make a book. Certainly the latest Pastis
collection, King of the Comics, needs
to be rated “mature” for its sheer immaturity – of an adult type, that is. It
starts with virtually the entire cast of the strip being put in jail for one
reason or another (one being that Zebra and one of the crocs are found in bed
together by a police officer who says “this has to be illegal in some state”).
Interspersed with the jail strips are ones in which lemmings are committing
suicide in various creative ways. Later, cartoon Pastis – who frequently
appears in his own strip – is melted by a bucket of water that Rat throws at
him because of a particularly awful pun. Also here are a battle between an
orchestra’s first and second violinists, a parody of the heartwarming “Shelter
Stories” from the Mutts comic strip,
a new character named Gomer Goldfish whose violent tendencies lead to a
barbed-wire fence atop his bowl, Rat’s definition of a cruise vacation as
“being trapped in a confined space with overweight people [and] broken
toilets,” a pair of “peppy penguin morning greeters” with a banjo, a Jumble
puzzle whose solution mocks Pastis as having no sense of humor, a series in
which the title characters from Calvin and
Hobbes have become a bootleg-merchandise seller and a fanatical right-wing
TV commentator, Rat taking his pet human to be neutered, a couple of appearances
by vigilante deer, cartoon Pastis drawing the missing nose on cartoon Cathy,
Rat declaring himself a medical doctor – you get the idea, or if you don’t get
it by now, Pearls Before Swine is
probably not your sort of strip. Pastis’ humor is dark, skewed, strange,
pointed, sometimes right on the verge of vulgar, and offbeat enough to keep
readers off balance, without any way to predict where he and the strip will go
next. Pearls Before Swine somehow
manages to be thoroughly adult and completely immature at the same time. That’s
probably another aspect of Pastis’ legal training.

The kids who do appear in
Pastis’ world are scarcely childlike – one, for example, proposes that her
basketball team be named the Chandraguptas, after “a great emperor in India who
voluntarily gave up all his power to become a monk.” But kids in other strips
manage to remain recognizably kid-like, which means that strips such as Big Nate continue the long comic
tradition of reaching out to younger readers. They also fit much better than Pearls Before Swine does into the AMP!
Format, as is clear from Big Nate: Say
Good-Bye to Dork City, the latest AMP! collection from Lincoln Peirce
(pronounced “purse”). Nate is a sixth-grader, age 11 or 12 (depending on which
strips he happens to be in), and is clearly modeled in part on Peirce himself:
Peirce says he started drawing cartoons in sixth grade, just as Nate does.
Unfortunately, Say Good-Bye to Dork City
does not contain any “Nate-drawn” cartoons. But it does offer plenty of typical
Nate antics: he dresses as Sherlock Holmes (complete with bubble-blowing pipe)
to search for his allegedly stolen lucky (and filthy) socks; he gets permission
for his band, Enslave the Mollusk, to perform at a school dance (things do not
go as planned); he finds himself in conflict, as usual, with his feckless
father and his teacher nemesis, Mrs. Godfrey (and even with her dog); his
friend, Francis, uses him as an object lesson in a science project designed to show
that some people’s brains retain certain kinds of information (lots of pop
trivia) but cannot absorb other types (anything school-related); and he joins
the “cool kids” posse of super-popular Marcus, then backs out after realizing
Marcus is just a bully and not as cool as Nate’s real friends, Francis and
Teddy. That last sequence is an example of the infrequent “lesson” ones in Big Nate, which usually just chronicles
the foibles of a not-quite-adolescent with an inflated view of himself but a
basically good heart and some genuine talents (such as chess) that help
counterbalance his lack of interest in academic subjects.

Some of Nate’s talents are
front and center in Big Nate’s Greatest
Hits, but they do not always take him where he wants to go – which is, of
course, the point. Nate, for example, is a cut-throat Monopoly player, but when
he urges Francis and Teddy to be more intense in their play, they decide to
team up to bankrupt him. Nate announces that he has a bond with Vincent Van
Gogh, in whose style he is painting, but then Francis points out that Van Gogh
was “an emotionally troubled misfit who was a total failure during his
lifetime.” Nate gets over 100 people to sign his yearbook, but doesn’t notice
that they have done such things as getting his name wrong and writing “Dear
Ugly.” But things do go Nate’s way sometimes – otherwise Big Nate would be depressing rather than as amusing as it actually
is. In Big Nate’s Greatest Hits, Nate
actually gets a girlfriend, whose name is Angie. True, he only meets her when
he has to go to summer school because his grades are so poor (she is attending
because she has just moved to the area and needs to catch up). It turns out
that she loves to draw, so she and Nate connect immediately: he shows her
characters such as Doctor Cesspool, stuntman Moe Mentum, and announcers Biff
and Chip, and she observes that “they all look like the same character, just
with different hair” – which makes Nate happy (“she sees right through me”). Of
course, Nate and Angie have rough spots because of his self-image (he lies to
her about why he is in summer school, for example), but giving Nate an actual
girlfriend (someone to take his mind off perpetual crush Jennie, who is
tremendously happy to find Nate paired with someone else) is a neat twist here.
The book also gives fans of Nate’s cartoon characters (even the ones that do sort
of look alike) plenty of chances to see them – not only the ones he shows Angie
but also Dr. Warren Fuzzy (host of “Feelings”), Nate’s big sister Ellen (drawn
in “Ellen: The Board Game”), Abe Lincoln (refusing to take off his stovepipe
hat while courting Mary Todd), Dan Cupid (“love consultant”), Claire Voyant
(“celebrity psychic”), and on and on. Excluding these comics-within-comics, Nate
and the characters around him – friends, family, neighbors, classmates,
teachers, etc. – are the stuff of which many comic strips have been made over
the years. But Peirce manages to keep the formula fresh, the interactions
interesting, and Nate himself an example of a character with whom today’s young
comic-strip readers can enjoy spending time – at least until they are ready to
encounter Pastis’ Rat, Pig, Goat, Guard Duck and crocs.

Sometimes the fun of a book
is less in the plot than in the strange, amusing, silly and/or offbeat
characters. It is the peculiarity of Shivers the boy pirate (age 11) and his
faithful companion Margo (age 10) that makes Shivers! The Pirate Who’s Afraid of EVERYTHING so enjoyable – not
the thin and largely predictable story, which it is easy to believe is based on
an idea from a nine-year-old boy (the authors actually say that, crediting a
boy name Harrison Blanz for the book’s concept). Shivers is a landlubber of a
pirate, living in a permanently beached pirate ship while his brave pirate
parents and bold pirate brother sail the seas having piratical adventures. But
parents and brother alike have been captured, and only Shivers can save them.
So he gets together with Margo, daughter of Police Chief Clomps’n’Stomps, and
the two set off to rescue Shivers’ family – which they do. That’s the whole
plot, but it matters little, since the real attraction here is finding out just
how terrified Shivers is of absolutely everything: pumpkins, because of the
size of their seeds; clouds, because they look like cute fluffy pillows but can
generate killing electricity; pepperoni pizza, which Shivers calls “deadly
spotted cheese bread”; and more. Lots more. But Shivers is not afraid of his best friend, Albee the fish (who in one scene of
the story has a crucial part to play). More to the point, he realizes he is not
afraid of Margo, even when she makes scary faces at him. So maybe he can rescue
his family after all! Well, of course he can, although there is a small matter
of his fear of snails that gets in the way – that is, until it becomes a
solution rather than a problem. Annabeth Bondor-Stone and Connor White have a
great time piling absurdity on absurdity here, and the illustrations by Anthony
Holden are a hoot – such as the one of Shivers doing song-and-dance time, with
a grand piano in the background and a huge grin on his face, while wearing
bunny slippers (one of which also eventually has an important part to play).
Throw in a giant squid, some sharks with surprisingly good taste, a pirate
opponent called Captain Pokes-You-in-the-Eye, and a very French master
criminal, and Shivers! The Pirate Who’s
Afraid of EVERYTHING turns out to be too funny to be one of a kind –
readers who enjoy Shivers and Margo will surely want to see more of them.

Readers who prefer a cosmic
sort of silliness may gravitate (ha, ha) to Willy
Maykit in Space, in which Greg Trine comes up with passages like this:
“Willy and his companions had no idea that there was a monster out there who wanted
revenge. They knew there were monsters out there, sure. And they knew that they
roamed around at night, looking for things to eat. But they had no idea that it
was personal.” It seems that Willy has gotten himself stranded on Planet Ed
during a fourth-grade field trip: the return-to-Earth ship leaves without him.
It also leaves without his classmate, Cindy, who realized he was missing and,
instead of telling anyone, decided to go looking for him – ending up stranded
herself (logic and rationality matter not at all in character-driven books like
this one). The two soon encounter and befriend an alien boy named Norp, and the
three of them set off on outer-space adventures that also involve Max, an android
pilot (not a very good one) with a strong preference for knock-knock jokes.
Also involved is Phelps, “a bird, or whatever you call things that fly on
Planet Ed.” While all this is going on, Willy’s dad, Mr. Maykit, is being held
captive in the Amazon jungle on Earth by a tribe of foothunters, “and now they
were staring at his feet even more than usual.” So there are several escapes, or
escapes-in-progress, here. One specific monster on Planet Ed is a serious
problem, though: “He’d been pooped on by a seagull, shunned by his own kind,
and he’d missed the annual Monster Ball. This was one angry beast.” To see just
how angry, readers need only look at
James Burks’ pictures, which make this (and other things) abundantly clear.
Eventually, everyone escapes from everything, waffles are served all around,
and here too, readers may wonder whether there will be further adventures to
come.

No such wondering is needed
for the child version of Amelia Bedelia, spun off by Herman Parish from the
adult version created by his aunt, Peggy Parish. Amelia Bedelia Cleans Up is already the sixth chapter book in
Herman Parish’s ongoing series, and while none of the books is up to the
quality of the ones by Peggy Parish, each – including this one – offers an
enjoyable focus on the central character. The story here, which is as thin as the
plots of others in this series (and as thin as the plots of many other
character-centered books for young readers), has to do with a search for a
clubhouse, maybe even a treehouse. Amelia Bedelia and her friends find what
seems like an ideal place: an empty lot with a big tree in the middle. So they
get together and start cleaning the lot up. And they do a good job – only to
learn that the lot, although vacant, is not simply available to anyone who
wants to use it. It is for sale, and of course they cannot afford to buy it. What
they can do, it turns out, is prevent possible buyers from being interested in
making the purchase – because the girls make comments that make buyers feel the
lot is not right for them. This upsets Victor Lee, the man who is trying to
sell the lot. He is not the owner, though – that is elderly Mrs. West, whom the
girls meet and befriend. They ask her not to sell, but she really needs the
money to fix up her house. However, Amelia Bedelia figures out a way for Mrs.
West to get money without selling the lot, and Mrs. West decides to donate the
land to be made into a park, and everything ends happily – not surprisingly at
all. The fun here is supposed to come mainly from Amelia Bedelia’s tendency to
take figurative language literally (“ants in my pants,” “hold on to your hat,” and
so forth). But the use of such language in these (+++) chapter books seems
overdone and forced, not natural as in the Peggy Parish originals. Young
readers of Herman Parish’s books may not mind, though, and certainly Lynne
Avril’s amiable illustrations help make these books into enjoyable, quick reads
whose central character is pleasantly quirky.

Fantasy novels for preteens
and young teenagers frequently take a straightforward coming-of-age path, but
not always. Some of them weave elaborate, multi-string plot strands into webs
designed to catch young readers’ imagination and keep those readers involved
through sheer complexity. The Whisperer,
published in Australia in 2009 but only now appearing in a U.S. edition, is
decidedly on the side of complexity – but at its heart, it is a kind of the-prince-and-the-pauper
story about connected boys who learn only as the story progresses just who they
are and just what they mean to each other (and to those around them). One of
the boys, Griff, joined the circus with his two brothers when all were quite
young;this is a good place for him to
do dull manual work, keeping as much to himself as possible, because Griff
hears other people’s thoughts and finds it unbearable to be around too many
people. An oddity of the plot, though, is that Griff hears thoughts only when
they are important to the people thinking them – and that strains credulity
even for a fantasy, because how, exactly, does Griff’s telepathic ability know
this? In any case, the second boy – the “prince” one – is Lute, who is indeed
crown prince of the kingdom of Destronia. Griff and Lute know nothing about
each other, but each is in danger – Griff from Master Tyren, who runs the
circus and wants to use Griff’s telepathy to make more money, and Lute from his
usurping uncle, Janko. Obviously these two boys are going to meet, and they do
indeed work their way toward each other after Griff starts hearing Lute’s
thoughts, not knowing where they come from but telling himself that they emanate
from a “whisperer.” Fiona McIntosh, who has written dozens of adult novels,
carefully backs out overly adult themes from The Whisperer, turning it into a quest adventure whose eventual
outcome is never really in doubt but whose twists and turns should keep young readers
interested. The most involving of those involve subsidiary characters. One is
Tess, with whom Griff runs away from the circus – she brings magical creatures
with her. Another is a bandit dwarf named Bitter Olof who, in an intriguing
twist, used to be tall and strong but had to give up his height to a witch in
return for his life. A third is Olof’s former lover, Calico Grace, who had to surrender
her beauty for the same reason andnow
commands a pirate ship – a magical one, no less. Olof and Grace intersect the
story of Leto’s escape and are strongly connected to Leto through the person of
his friend and bodyguard, Pilo – yet another plot complication. Eventually
Griff and Leto find out just why and how they are connected, and that
particular plot development is anything but surprising. In fact, few individual
elements of The Whisperer are
surprises (although the witch taking Olof’s height and Grace’s beauty is a neat
concept); but there are so many things going on in the book that readers will
be swept along from event to event, peril to peril, enjoying the ups and downs
as they try to figure out just what is going to happen before the inevitable
(and rather too pat) happy ending.

The magic is specific rather
than pervasive in Genuine Sweet, a
book whose title is the name of its narrator. She and the other females in her
family are “wish fetchers,” living in the small town of Sass, Georgia, which is
“full of folks who had family shines. Everyone knew Mina Cunningham was a pain
lifter and the Fullers could soothe bad dreams. But granting wishes? That was
hanging the basket mighty high.” Yes, that is what wish fetchers can do – but
not for themselves, although sometimes “we can nudge the Lord just a little,”
as Genuine’s beloved grandmother explains. Genuine – who is 12 and whose middle
name, by the way, is Beauty – lives with her perpetually drunk father and her
grandmother (Gram), her ma having passed on. Faith Harkey’s book constantly
mixes the mundane with the mystical: Genuine and her grandmother bake wish
biscuits from a “bag of miracle flour” that is always “just as full as it had
been when I first brought it home,” but although the concept of biscuit-making
is down-to-earth and homey, it is juxtaposed with New Age-y sounding narration:
“The stars were singing. …There came a time that it felt right to raise my cup
and whistle down some magic from the stars. It was then that I realized: the
light was the song, which was the light. It was more than that,
too, but what more, I couldn’t
fathom. It was a mystery far bigger than me.” And, when the requests to Genuine
from the impoverished townspeople seem too much of a burden for a young girl to
bear: “I caught my mirror image in the window and pondered what it might be
like to live there, on the distant
side of things. Folks couldn’t demand doodly from me; I’d be nothing but a
reflection, far away, where things were watery and quiet.” Genuine is clearly
wise beyond her years, and more poetic in her thoughts, too. Actually, Harkey
is not always sure just how mature to make her – which leads to a passage like
this: “This is Travis Tromp! I
reminded myself. He could be angry and pushy and – I’ll say it – a little
chauvinistic, with all that ‘baby’ stuff. He was as goofy as a snaggletoothed
pup, too.” The book proceeds on a standard story arc, with Genuine learning more
about herself and her past, then facing a tragic (and unsurprising) loss, then
erupting in anger at the unfairness of life, then losing her ability to fetch
wishes, but then figuring out how to do something – well, perhaps not better,
but equally satisfying, in a different way. This is a pleasant story rather
than a profound one, a tale built around magic but told in a rather
matter-of-fact manner, as if magic itself is mundane. Being a fantasy, it is
scarcely genuine, but it does manage to be sweet.

Complex fantasies are, most assuredly, not
only for young readers. In fact, adult-focused fantasies are even more
complicated – and a great deal longer – than ones intended for preteens and
teenagers. Kylie Chan’s Celestial Battle
is typical of the genre. Demon Child
is the second book, after Dark Serpent
started the trilogy. As is common in adult fantasies, there are paired lovers
whose fate is central to much greater matters, such as, in this case, eventual
control of Earth and Heaven alike (an absurd premise that seems less so simply
because of the frequency with which it is used in adult fantasies). Here the
lovers’ names are Emma Donohoe and John Chen, but their names matter little,
since they are filling typecast roles and are themselves simply types. Demon Child is so overloaded with mixed
metaphors and mixed time periods that it tends to career off the tracks again
and again. At one point there is an unintentionally funny scene in which the
Dark Lord (“that’s really what he’s called?” asks one character) is in the
infirmary during a meeting in which one character keeps switching his age (from
12 to 30) and appearance, and soon there is a comment, “Send the message
through the network. Confirm by text when you’re sure that the Masters, Ma, Er
Lang and the Winds are informed.” Then there are passages like this: “They took
down the Dragon, but obviously they don’t have another cage because he came
back almost immediately. They don’t have any of the Winds or the Generals, but
there isn’t much left of the army and many of our senior officers are
prisoners. The Jade Emperor ordered us to evacuate when Father went down and
the cockroach attacked the barricades, so the last of us made it out.” Understand:
all this makes sense in Chan’s fantasy world, but there is so much of it, so
constantly tossed about and so frequently tumbling over itself with
incoherence, that Celestial Battle is
a series only for those who want to immerse themselves really, really deeply
into an utterly absurd alternative universe filled with demons, opposing armies
of Sidhe (pronounced “shee”) and Shen, and many portentous capitalized words:
“She was Raised. …Is the Turtle still in the Grotto? …I have the Serpent with
me. I’ll be at the Gates of Heaven in about ten minutes. I need a ride from
there to the Mountain, as fast as possible.” Certainly Demon Child is the wrong place to start reading as lengthy and
overwrought a fantasy as Celestial
Battle. Readers who are truly enamored of this sort of
magical-romantic-martial-arts story need to start with the first book and work
their way onward to this one, and thence to the forthcoming finale.

All music releases are
intended to bring pleasure to listeners, but it would be exaggerating to call
most of them significant in themselves. Once in a while, though, there is
something truly important about a recording, or set of recordings, and that is
the case with the Idil Biret Schumann
Edition, an eight-disc package of previously released performances by the
Turkish pianist offered as a boxed set by IBA (Idil Biret Archive) at an
exceptional price. What makes this important is not the cost, however, but the
value. Like any modern virtuoso, Biret is expert at the standard piano
repertoire: she can handle Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff
with skill and sensitivity. Also like any modern virtuoso, she makes forays
into less-often-played works and excels at presenting them: music by Boulez,
Ligeti and Wilhelm Kempff (the great pianist who was Biret’s mentor), among
others. But beyond the “standards,” Biret has something that sets her apart
from other first-rank pianists, and that something is her way with Schumann.
Certain Schumann pieces are absolute “musts” for pianists: the Piano Concerto, Kinderszenen and Fantasie in C, Op. 17. And a few others are heard from top pianists
from time to time. But Biret performs and records Schumann more extensively –
and, significantly, with more attentiveness and involvement – than do most
other pianists, and the Idil Biret
Schumann Edition is important because it showcases her exceptional way with
this composer’s music and her exceptional sensitivity to its many (and
frequently conflicting) moods. This shows even in Schumann’s best-known piano
music. In the Piano Concerto, for example, Biret opts for slower-than-usual
tempos in the first and third movements, with the first in particular seeming
to move at an unusually measured pace because of the evenness of Biret’s finger
work and her comparatively modest use of pedals. The second movement is lyrical
and warm, but not overwrought, while the finale is stately – and grander than
in most other performances. It is certainly possible to critique this
performance as somewhat over-thought, more intellectual than it needs to be;
and this, indeed, is a periodic issue in all Biret’s performances, whose
emotive nature sometimes takes a back seat to an analytical approach. But at
the same time, this concerto gains stature and solidity with Biret that it
rarely attains with other performers. Similarly, Kinderszenen here sounds very definitely like the attempt by an
adult to look back on scenes of childhood with a mixture of nostalgia and
objectivity. And the Fantasie in C is
treated as something akin to (but not quite identical to) a sonata, its
differing moods delineated clearly and its final, meditative section given
considerable weight and a very effective conclusion.

But it is through the
Schumann works that are heard less often that listeners will really come to
appreciate Biret’s excellence in this repertoire. The Introduction and Allegro appassionato, Op. 92 and Introduction and Concert Allegro, Op. 134
get firm, knowing and involving performances from both Biret and the Polish
National Radio Symphony Orchestra under Antoni Wit (this is a better ensemble
than the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, which is used in the Concerto). The Abegg Variations, Op. 1 are handled with
clarity and delicacy throughout. The Toccata,
Op. 7 gets full display-piece treatment. The mercurial Sonata No. 2 in G minor is explored throughout its whole variety of
moods, right through its concluding faster-and-faster Presto. In Kreisleriana,
Biret’s careful attentiveness to the work’s contrasting aspects produces a
performance by turns agitated, expressive, stormy, gentle, frenetic and
tranquil. Biret is a touch too staid in Blumenstück,
which is almost but not quite salon music, but again, she does an excellent job
negotiating the work’s shifting moods. Faschingsschwank
aus Wien (“Carnival in Vienna”), which is not particularly profound or
nuanced, gets a knowing performance that is fully attentive to the work’s
melodic charms. The Piano Quintet
shows Biret to be quite capable of receding toward (if not quite into) the
background when necessary, becoming a full partner with strings in the first
two movements before shining forth to begin the third and dominating the
discussion through to the work’s end – with the Borusan Quartet being perhaps a
touch too deferential to her, but offering fine ensemble support.

And so on and so forth,
throughout this entire first-rate set. There are bonuses here, too. One is
Tchaikovsky’s Album for the Young, Op.
39, a set of 24 short movements (many under a minute) that capture old
Russian childhood feelings and memories in elegant miniature – and that are
correctly handled by Biret with a mood very different from that of Schumann’s Kinderszenen. Another bonus is Debussy’s
Children’s Corner Suite, to which
Biret brings just the right mixture of sly humor, elegance, and jubilation. And
the eighth and last disc in the box is a real treat for Biret fans, including
her earliest radio appearances, from 1949 and 1953 (featuring interview
segments as well as performances, including a substantial one in 1953 of Bach’s
Fantaisie Chromatique et Fugue). Also
on this CD is Biret’s 1959 version of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, which contrasts
fascinatingly with the version from 2000 heard elsewhere in the set: emphases
have changed and there is certainly greater overall subtlety in the later
interpretation, but Biret’s musicianship was obviously already very finely
honed in 1959, when she was 18 – and, for that matter, she already had
excellent musical and performance instincts as far back as 1949, when she was
only eight.The Idil Biret Schumann Edition is important for the performances,
true, but even more so for the unusually detailed portrait it provides of an
expert pianist with genuine affinity for some less-often-performed music that
allows her to display her thoughtfulness, analytical ability and innate
understanding of a great composer in ways that set her apart from other highly
talented modern virtuosi.

The Naxos release of
Rossini’s Guillaume Tell is an
important one for a different reason. Amazingly, there has never before been a
complete recording of the sprawling, uncut four-act version of Rossini’s last
opera – the work after which he retired to enjoy life, live on a pension (which
he ended up having to fight to obtain), and write volume upon volume of Péchés de vieillesse (“Sins of Old Age”)
for all sorts of instrumental and vocal combinations. This recording of Guillaume Tell was made from four live
performances at the “Rossini in Wildbad” festival in Germany, with a
multinational cast that makes up in enthusiasm what it occasionally lacks in
sheer vocal heft. Rossini made a whole series of cuts and changes in Guillaume Tell after completing it,
understanding the exigencies of theatrical production exceptionally well and
having a remarkably ego-free approach to his operas. The result is that much of
the music on this four-CD set will be completely unfamiliar to listeners. The
opera in its original form is very long indeed – Meyerbeer length, in fact:
four hours of music. It is filled with gloriously tuneful material but also
with, it must be said, a certain amount of padding and some uninspired material
– as, indeed, was the norm in Rossini’s operas. The themes used in the justly
renowned overture all have significant roles in the action, and the famous
scene in which Tell shoots an arrow through an apple that is on the head of his
son, Jemmy, is one of high drama. Storms and calm, hymns to freedom and
insistence on obedience, a love story involving two subsidiary characters who
become germane and then crucial to the eventual happy outcome (Arnold,
representing the oppressed Swiss, and Mathilde, from the oppressing Hapsburgs,
who eventually joins Arnold in both love and political solidarity) – all these
elements and more tumble over one another through a plot filled with rescues,
defiance, lyricism, anger, patriotism and bravado. Guillaume Tell is quite an opera; and yes, it is somewhat
over-long, if only because parts of it bog down here and there and because the
villain of the piece, Gesler, does not even appear until the third act. The
positives of the complete version far outweigh the negatives, however, and the
soloists here clearly give their all to the production: if none of them is ne plus ultra, certainly none is
inadequate.

Guillaume Tell is an ensemble piece through most of its length – a
fact showcased in this recording in a 24-minute supplement on the fourth CD.
This includes alternative versions of several numbers and the revised
conclusion that Rossini prepared for the three-act version staged in Paris in
1831. In the supplementary material, different singers take some of the roles
while the same singers are used in others – an indication of the overall
ensemble approach evident throughout the production. Conductor Antonino
Fogliani holds things together from start to finish and keeps the work moving
at a deliberate, carefully chosen pace that allows the material to unfold
naturally without seeming rushed or held back. This middle-of-the-road approach
generally serves the opera well, although occasionally a little more fire and
intensity would have been welcome. Also welcome would have been a libretto with
English translation: Naxos provides an unusually thorough summary of the action
in this set’s booklet, but makes only the French-language libretto,
untranslated, available online. Since the complete opera has not been recorded
before, there is really no readily available source for a complete, translated
libretto – although the gist of what is going on is certainly clear from the
summary in the booklet. Still, an undertaking as interesting and, yes,
important as this one would have been better served by providing listeners with
the means to follow exactly what is being said and sung. Nevertheless, this is an important release, allowing opera
lovers to hear for the first time just what all the fuss was about when Rossini
presented his sprawling, intense, sometimes overdone, highly patriotic final
opera – capping a career that spanned two decades but leading to a life in
which, for a variety of reasons, there were to be no further operas until the
composer’s death 39 years after Guillaume
Tell.